The marathon confession to setting fire to a predominantly black church the night Barack Obama was elected president is a crucial part of prosecution and defense cases. Watch video
Michael JacquesSPRINGFIELD – The police interrogation of Michael F. Jacques took so long, it has been reproduced in a four-DVD box set.
With jurors taking notes, prosecutors played more highlights of the 6½-hour grilling Monday, showing the former auto body shop employee denying – then admitting – to helping burn down the Macedonia Church of God in Christ hours after Barack Obama’s election.
“So what’s the worst that can happen to me?,” Jacques asked several hours into the interrogation, near the end of the third DVD.
All three defendants confessed to torching the $2.5 million chapel under construction on Tinkham Road, but Jacques later recanted, claiming he was pressured into making false claims. The others – Benjamin F. Haskell and Thomas A. Gleason – pleaded guilty, leaving Jacques as the last defendant.
The trio emerged as suspects within 72 hours of the fire, and were arrested in January 2009 after giving incriminating statements to an undercover state trooper.
The interrogation – a key part of both prosecution and defense cases – was conducted on Jan. 15, 2009 after Jacques agreed to burn down a building at the request of an undercover trooper posing as a Holyoke landlord. Within 20 minutes, he was brought to a state police office and confronted with evidence from the church fire.
Initially nonchalant, Jacques tenses up and appears to shrink into his chair as trooper Michael S. Mazza and FBI agent Ian D. Smythe pepper him with questions. Several hours later, the suspect has nearly slid off his seat after hearing a tape recorded confession from defendant Benjamin Haskell that also places Jacques at the fire scene.
“I don’t blame you for calling me a liar because I look like a liar,” said Jacques, who maintains that he bragged about burning the church, without actually doing it.
When the investigators leave the room, Jacques appears distraught.
“Why (expletive) would he (Haskell) say that; it makes no sense,” Jacques says to himself.
Under questioning from Assistant U.S. Attorney Kevin O’Regan, Mazza explained that key elements of Jacques story changed during the interview; initially, he professed ignorance of the church burning; claimed he spent Nov. 5 at home with his parents; and denied any racist sentiments.
Each assertion, Mazza said, was undermined by taped statements from Haskell or Jacques himself; at one point, Jacques denies making racists statements, prompting Smythe to respond, “my audio (recordings) would beg to differ.”
On the tape, Jacques eventually admits to setting the fire with Haskell, Gleason and a fourth man he could not identify.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Kevin O’Regan is expected to finish questioning Mazza by mid-week, clearing the way for defense lawyer Lori H. Levinson to begin her cross-examination.
